# Humans are not hard-wired for moral behavior
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [January 16, 2011, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802 "2011-01-16T05:45:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/41 "2011-01-17T23:15:02Z")
So sociopaths are made, not born? How do you explain amoral people who come from otherwise normal and nurturing family environments?
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### Author:  [@B.Serum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/B.Serum)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2011, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/42 "2011-01-17T23:23:52Z")
A little more than tangentially related: RadioLab recently did a show on a scientific look at “[being good.](http://www.radiolab.org/2010/dec/14/)” Worth a listen for the people invested in this subject.
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/43 "2011-01-17T23:26:40Z")
> [@marshmallow](#):
>
> So sociopaths are made, not born? How do you explain amoral people who come from otherwise normal and nurturing family environments?
Like who?
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/44 "2011-01-17T23:27:21Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> An interesting study, to be sure, but like every study that I’ve ever seen purporting to prove that a certain behavior is produced by genes, it doesn’t actually mention genes.
They don’t have to. They test whether a certain behavior appears to correlate to the environment vs. family relations or some other factor that separates nature from nurture. If the conclusion is that the behavior didn’t come from the environment, then it must have been biologically determined. Everything biologically determined comes from genes (or from disease or injury, but these can be controlled for).
> [@](#):
>
> One might also wonder, if the behavior is in the human genome, then why did 80% of the babies choose the ‘helpful’ toy but the other 20% presumably chose the ‘unhelpful’ one? One might respond that we’re hard-wired for morality but the 20% somehow broke free of that constraint. But then how do we know that it isn’t the 80% breaking free instead.
Because nobody ever claims that complex behavior is 100% biologically caused. The purpose of inquiry is to find out whether it is at all biologically influenced. If it is, then further lines of inquiry investigate how much it is biologically influenced, how the environment affects this influence, and ultimately the exact physiological or biochemical cause, and what genes produced this cause.
Let me ask you this.. have you ever sat down and read any books on this subject? Because there are a number of popularly accessible works that do a good job of explaining these concepts. They anticipate and demolish all the arguments you’ve made here. If you’re interested in improving your understanding, please ask and I will provide you some references.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2011, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/45 "2011-01-17T23:30:08Z")
> [@marshmallow](#):
>
> So sociopaths are made, not born?
Why can’t they be both, like the late Earl Warren?
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [January 17, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/46 "2011-01-17T23:39:10Z")
> [@marshmallow](#):
>
> So sociopaths are made, not born? How do you explain amoral people who come from otherwise normal and nurturing family environments?
Again, some minuscule amount of variation in personality might be good genetically, because organisms that robotically act the same way every time, given the same environment and genetics, might sooner or later run into a bottleneck where they will all make the “wrong” decision and all die.
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### Author:  [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/47 "2011-01-18T01:12:04Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#):
>
> Like who?
I didn’t think you agreed with the OP at all, so that strikes me as a weird question.
The BTK killer.
Half the case histories in _The Mask of Sanity_.
Any sociopath in a twin study who was raised in a good home.
If genetic randomness (or a developmental glitch in the womb or so on) isn’t to blame for any sort of anti-social amoral behavior then…well, I don’t want to attack a straw man, but I’m not sure what the OP is proposing. The notion that serial killers and sociopaths do what they do because mommy didn’t love them enough went out of fashion like 30 years ago. If your 7 year old doesn’t have a conscience and doesn’t understand that other people have feelings or he has violent fantasies it’s doubtful you’re much to blame, unless you criminally neglected him or heavily abused drugs while you were pregnant.
Or maybe **ITR champion** isn’t going as far as I think. Do you disagree that normal people have an inborn moral faculty that develops along a predictable schedule?
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### Author:  [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/48 "2011-01-18T01:19:15Z")
No, I actually thought you were suggesting that there was no genetic component or else there would be no born sociopaths.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/49 "2011-01-18T18:06:39Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#):
>
> We are our genes.
>
> Our moral codes and practical behaviours derive from the way we are hard-wired; our intellect (also hard-wired) layers upon those genes a complexity that results from our ability to be introspective about our belief systems.
>
> There are two competing drivers hardwired into our genes that underlie what we call “morality.”
>
> The first is a drive for personal survival. Call this the “narcissism” gene.
> The second is a drive for group survival. Call this the “altruism” gene.
> Obviously they are not single “genes” but you get the idea.
>
> These two behaviours frequently (though not always) compete. The altruism gene might drive a behavioural code not to kill you, but the narcissism gene might let me over-ride such a code.
>
> Humans are not “hard-wired for moral behaviour” but they are hard-wired, and their gut instinct for what they have come to call “moral code” is a consequence of those genes. The specifics of such a moral code may vary from group to group (although some specifics are remarkably constant such as parental bonds) but consider that the mere existence of codes at all reflects a remarkably consistent pattern. I can’t think of any groups who behave completely at random. It seems to be a requirement for survival to develop “moral” codes, and those codes are a consequence of our need for both personal and group survival.
>
> PS: The “take care of the Queen Ant” gene drives our behavioural codes for leadership…
Are you saying there’s no environmental component to human behavior at all? That seems extraordinary to me.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/50 "2011-01-18T18:20:31Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> What is your hypothesis, **ITR champion**?
>
> That the brain is a blank slate, or just WRT morality?
> And emotions?
If you’ve read other threads by ITR, his hypothesis is obvious. Human morality comes from God.
Why he doesn’t want to outright state his hypothesis should be obvious as well.
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### Author:  [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/51 "2011-01-18T18:27:53Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> Human moral behavior is not similar to animal behavior, however. To see this we need only look at the animal most closely related to us, which is the chimpanzee. Jane Goodall has observed chimpanzees in the wild eating their own babies. We, on the other hand, do not eat our own babies. Indeed, if we went into a restaurant and saw baby on the menu, we would be quite displeased.
Of course, this is wrong, the chimp you’re thinking of didn’t kill and eat her own babies, instead she killed and ate the babies of other chimps. But nevermind. Next, you say this:
> [@](#):
>
> … In ancient Greece and Rome, many parents killed their own female children because males were more valuable to the family. It’s estimated that a quarter to a third of all girls were killed in this manner. In some places on earth today, authorities are still struggling to stamp out this type of infanticide.
So which is it? That human morality can’t be analogous to a chimp’s, because humans don’t sometimes kill their babies, or that human behavior can’t be universal because humans sometimes kill their babies?
Infanticide has a long history, and the main reason we don’t see much of it today in 2011 America is because we have legal abortion which accomplishes the same objective, just earlier in the process.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/52 "2011-01-18T21:00:18Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> If you’ve read other threads by ITR, his hypothesis is obvious. Human morality comes from God.
>
> Why he doesn’t want to outright state his hypothesis should be obvious as well.
Ah yes, the name was familiar, but I didn’t remember from what kind of thread.
The alarming thing is that now I think he’s implying that if it weren’t for god writing the law and wielding the pain stick, we’d all be _eating our babies_!
(he _can’t_ be saying that god imbues us with an innate morality, because his arguments would work just as “well” against such a position)
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### Author:  [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/53 "2011-01-18T23:48:14Z")
> [@Lemur866](#):
>
> Infanticide has a long history, and the main reason we don’t see much of it today in 2011 America is because we have legal abortion which accomplishes the same objective, just earlier in the process.
The bigger point is that the existence of infanticide is not incompatible with morality. Infanticide is a horrifying thing, but it isn’t done haphazardly or remorselessly. It follows a rationality of maximizing your genetic survival to the next generation in situations of dire poverty (note that India and China are the biggest offenders). You might argue that a “morality” that includes infanticide is no kind of morality at all. I would counter that it’s unconscionable to kill in wartime or capital punishment, but that doesn’t stop conservatives who sanction this behavior from feeling like they’re following a good moral behavior. It goes to show that explicit moral precepts aren’t hardwired, but that we do have a sense of moral cognition that helps construct and maintain systems of morality that are adaptive to the environment and culture.
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### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/54 "2011-01-19T17:12:12Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#):
>
> Penfield did some great stuff that is with us to this day. It is funny how I never learned of the “non-physical agency” hypothesis in school. I am guessing that this was more of a comment on emergent properties in the brain. I only learned about the work in epilepsy. You are aware of the literally thousands of lesion studies in nonhuman animals and studies of specific brain damage in humans that show selective deficits in behavior, including [moral behaviors](http://scan.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/2/84.full) (this is the full text and I strongly recommend you read the introduction for many other examples of both lesion and imaging studies)? You know of the over-discussed example of [Phineas Gage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage#Brain_damage_and_mental_changes) (I should pit myself for mentioning it). The debate these days is over the distribution of these functions and their organization.
In a rare example of Wikipedia being right, the article about Phineas Gage does say that most of what has been reported as fact about that particular case is actually fiction:
> [@Wikipedia](#):
>
> But any theory that looks to Gage for support faces the difficulty that the nature, extent, and duration of the injury’s effects on his mental state are very uncertain. In fact, little is known about what Phineas was like either before or after his injury (almost none of it first-hand),[n 14] the mental changes described after his death were much more dramatic than anything reported while he was alive, and even those descriptions which seem credible do not specify the period of his post-accident life to which they are meant to apply.
>
> In his 1848 report, as Gage was just completing his physical recovery, Harlow had only hinted at possible psychological symptoms: “The mental manifestations of the patient, I leave to a future communication. I think the case…is exceedingly interesting to the enlightened physiologist and intellectual philosopher.”[20] And after observing Gage for several weeks in late 1849, Henry Jacob Bigelow, Professor of Surgery at Harvard, went so far as to say that Gage was “quite recovered in faculties of body and mind,” there being “inconsiderable disturbance of function.”[n 6]
>
> It was not until 1868 that Harlow gave particulars of the mental changes found today (though usually in exaggerated or distorted form — see below) in most presentations of the case.
Based on what I’ve read, those paragraphs seem like a pretty decent summary of the facts of the case. For example [this article from _The Psychologist_](http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=21&editionID=164&ArticleID=1399) says:
> [@](#):
>
> There are just four primary sources of information about Gage: Harlow (1848), Bigelow (1850), then Harlow again (1868) – the only physicians to have examined him and published their observations – and finally J.B.S. Jackson (1870), who added a few facts of his own to what Gage’s family and others had told him. Anything not from these sources, or similarly documented, is not a fact about Phineas Gage.
>
> This is not to say these primary sources are entirely reliable. Harlow, for example, writing in 1868 while in contact with Phineas’ mother, reported that Phineas died in 1861, whereas funeral parlour records prove conclusively that he died in 1860. (In this article and elsewhere I have silently corrected other dates dependent on this one.) Similarly, a curious relic recently found by Dominic Hall, Curator of Harvard’s Warren Anatomical Museum, suggests that Phineas went to Chile in 1854 and not in 1852 as reported by Harlow.
>
> First the facts. Harlow’s picture of Phineas is at total variance with most later portrayals. A fair composite of today’s accounts would have a pre-accident Gage who was reliable, industrious, mild-mannered, temperate, genial, friendly, affable, the favourite of his peers and elders, showing considerable promise – a peaceful, happy and tranquil man.
>
> The composite of modern writers has the accident transforming this Phineas into a restless, moody, unpredictable, untrustworthy, depraved, slovenly, violently quarrelsome, aggressive and boastful dissipated drunken bully, displaying fits of temper, and with impaired sexuality. He is a waster: unwilling to work and unable to settle down. He spends most of the rest of his life in travelling circuses or drifting around fairgrounds to exhibit himself as a human freak, and dies penniless.
>
> The facts about the real Phineas may have a slight resemblance to the modern pre-accident representation, but he can hardly be recognised in the post–accident picture.
As for studies about brain injury patients, that’s a much larger topic and one that I’m not an expert on. However, I’ve read from a number of sources ([here’s one](http://www.archives-pmr.org/article/S0003-9993(06)01342-6/abstract)) that recent research on neuroplasticity has called into doubt some of the results that were previously thought of as settled in this area. This research is very recent, as in within the last ten years, for the most part. Hence I imagine it will be awhile before definite conclusions are reached about the extent to which damages to certain brain areas does produce lasting changes in morality or any other function.
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### Author:  [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)
#### Post date: [January 19, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/55 "2011-01-19T19:05:57Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> In a rare example of Wikipedia being right…
I only started posting to SDMB in the past year and I should have known you (or any other person that consistently debates) would focus on the weak case study from the mid1800s instead of the introduction to the link I provided, the study provided by the link and anything modern and with great support in favor of that one attack point in my argument.
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> As for studies about brain injury patients, that’s a much larger topic and one that I’m not an expert on. However, I’ve read from a number of sources ([here’s one](http://www.archives-pmr.org/article/S0003-9993(06)01342-6/abstract)) that recent research on neuroplasticity has called into doubt some of the results that were previously thought of as settled in this area. This research is very recent, as in within the last ten years, for the most part. Hence I imagine it will be awhile before definite conclusions are reached about the extent to which damages to certain brain areas does produce lasting changes in morality or any other function.
Unsurprisingly, the full text of your link supports what I have been saying all long:
[QUOTE=Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation]
to the previously held concept that reorganization of function in homologous regions of the intact hemisphere facilitates recovery from stroke, we now appreciate that good functional outcome is associated with increasing participation of regions in the damaged hemisphere, including sites adjacent to the infarct.
[/QUOTE]
It is saying that the older model was that recovery from stroke was due to the functionally identical region in the undamaged hemisphere of the brain taking over the job. What is now known is that the damaged region, the region that was doing the job, the job that its genetically programmed connections and chemistry allow it to do, also reorganizes to do that job once more or to at least assist in it. This does not disagree with what I was saying and in fact supports it. The article also comments on how the environment plays a far more important role in getting this reorganization started.
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### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2011, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/56 "2011-01-21T21:01:22Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#):
>
> Actually not true, if you examine how the axon works. Every single aspect of how axons transmit information is governed by the activity of proteins embedded in its membrane or secreted into the synapse (neurotransmitter proteins, ion pump proteins, receptor proteins, the proteins that build these proteins, not to mention the proteins involved in actually constructing, growing, and shaping the axon). There is nothing important that happens in any cell that isn’t heavily governed by its protein makeup, and this is especially true in an electrochemically dynamic cell like a neuron.
The fact that protein activity determines the behavior of an axon does not prove that genese control the behavior of the human brain, just as the fact that the keys on my keyboard produces letters in this post does not mean that the content of this post originated from my keyboard. Neurons are constantly changing through a human’s life. New axons are being formed, old axons are being removed, and existing axons are being strengthened or weakened. These changes in the brain’s wiring result from various stimuli from the outside and from the choices made by the individual. They do not result from any gene or genes, since the brain is capable of radically changing itself within an individual’s lifetime (within a very short time, in fact). Similarly I can write radically different posts using the same keyboard.
> [@](#):
>
> Only partially true.. it is not just the physical arrangement of connections but also heavily dependent on the production and regulation of the proteins I outlined above. If this weren’t true, psychoactive drugs wouldn’t work.
[They don’t.](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa065779) Not nearly as well as we’ve been lead to believe, at least.
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### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2011, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/57 "2011-01-21T21:07:27Z")
> [@Mijin](#):
>
> What is your hypothesis, **ITR champion**?
>
> That the brain is a blank slate, or just WRT morality?
> And emotions?
As I already said, I find no fundamental rule for human morality that’s obeyed by all humans, or by a majority in all societies. In societies where there’s overriding pressure towards believing that murder is wrong, almost everyone believes that it is wrong. In societies where there’s overriding pressure towards believing that murder is acceptable in certain cases, almost everyone believes that it is acceptable in those cases. Likewise with theft, sexual mores, government, property ownership, or anything else one cares to name. Most individuals pick up a moral outline from the society in which they are raised. However, an individual is still free to decide whether to follow that moral outline or not. Some choose to follow it, some ignore it, some choose to go against it in radical ways.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/58 "2011-01-21T21:49:04Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> As I already said, I find no fundamental rule for human morality that’s obeyed by all humans, or by a majority in all societies.
The error that many make in discussions like this is in assuming that anything genetic must be absolute. And that by finding a single exception that “proves” it must be cultural.
In reality, pretty much everything natural has variation. And no-one doubts that cultural pressures do have a huge effect on our species.
This does not take away from the fact that there is huge degree of overlap when you start to look at things like morality.
If morality is purely cultural, where are the populations with no concept of morality whatsoever? Where are the populations that have _no_ morals that we could relate to?
> [@](#):
>
> In societies where there’s overriding pressure towards believing that murder is wrong, almost everyone believes that it is wrong. In societies where there’s overriding pressure towards believing that murder is acceptable in certain cases, almost everyone believes that it is acceptable in those cases.
So some cultures find murder to be wrong, while some find murder to be _generally_ wrong but justifiable under certain circumstances, such as to prevent greater evil.
Well, with a massive spectrum of morality like that it must be entirely cultural :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/59 "2011-01-21T22:04:43Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> The fact that protein activity determines the behavior of an axon does not prove that genese control the behavior of the human brain
Who argues this? You argue this but nobody else does. It is a product of your imagination. You are making up this opposing point of view based on your understanding of neuroscience. The people you are arguing with do not believe what you think they believe. The closest anyone has come to arguing what you think they arguing is **Chief Pedant** , but he is not making this illusory argument. What is your purpose in arguing against this phantom point-of-view anyway?
To help me understand, fit Rett Syndrome into your point-of-view. Rett Syndrome is a disease caused by mutations in a gene which codes for a protein that in turn regulates the expression of other genes. Rett Syndrome causes severe developmental deficits in brain and behavior of females and since males only carry one copy of the gene responsible for Rett Syndrome, the mutations are embryonically lethal. Explain the behavioral effects of Down Syndrome, Angelman Syndrome, Prader-Willi Syndrome, Brain Tumors, Phenylketonuria, Fragile-X Syndrome, Cri Du Chat Syndrome, and any other misregulated/mutated gene effect on behavior that you can think of.
Also, your computer analogy is misunderstanding the role of genes. Genes would provide the blueprint for your computer.
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### Author:  [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)
#### Post date: [January 21, 2011, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/humans-are-not-hard-wired-for-moral-behavior/567802/60 "2011-01-21T22:17:18Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#):
>
> > [@Cosmic Relief](#):
> >
> > If this weren’t true, psychoactive drugs wouldn’t work.
>
> [They don’t.](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa065779) Not nearly as well as we’ve been lead to believe, at least.
Do you contend that the only class of psychoactive drug is the modern antidepressant? I am intrigued, I admit, but frankly rather dubious.
> [@ITR champion](#):
>
> However, an individual is still free to decide whether to follow that moral outline or not. Some choose to follow it, some ignore it, some choose to go against it in radical ways.
Could you give an example of someone in this thread who would argue with that statement?
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